How to Develop Math Literacy in Preschool Kids

Let preschoolers play games that teach them about shapes and patterns.

While toddlers and preschool-age children won't be faced with long division for several years, building skills they will need to successfully solve those problems starts before they can even read. Number sense, the sense of how numbers are related, actually starts in infancy and develops throughout life. Fortunately, parents don't need a calculator to help their little ones excel at preschool math. A few simple, and, more importantly, fun activities will put kids on the path to relish the challenge of long division.

Difficulty:

Moderate

Instructions

1. Use patterns to teach preschool math. At its core, math is about patterns, so teaching kids to look for and recognize patterns helps them excel at math later. A simple pattern activity is to create a necklace from beads. Discuss the concept of patterns, demonstrating how a necklace might be made and then allow children to pick their own pattern. A more advanced pattern activity is to start a pattern and have children predict what should be next. This kind of pattern activity can be done with beads, blocks or other items. Start with easier patterns based on color (yellow, red, blue) and then progress to type or category patterns (block, toy car, ball).

2. Sort items from biggest to smallest, tallest to shortest, lightest to heaviest. Matching games like Memory or I Spy are also great preschool math activities. Recognizing relationships between things and being able to compare them is a fundamental component of math literacy.

3. Play counting games. This can range from the more formal board game (Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, and Hi Ho Cheerio are classics) to counting how many times a child can hop on one foot. Anything can be counted, so be creative. Parents can even play grocery store with Monopoly money.

4. Blend art and math into fun preschool activities. Make your own play dough and have children count out and measure the ingredients. Once the play dough is done, make 'snakes' and bend them into the shape of numbers. Challenge children to draw a picture with a specific number of squares or other shapes. Consider making a number book by having children go through old magazines and catalogs to find pictures of one item, two items and so forth. Cut out the pictures and paste them into a "book" made of construction paper.

5. Include children in party planning or other activities involving the concept of how many or how much.

6. Have the kids put together simple puzzles. This develops critical thinking, problem solving and basic geometry skills.

7. Incorporate music and math by making index cards with varying numbers of big dots on them. Write the numeral next to the dots. Give children a drum and ask them to hit the drum according to the number of dots they see. In addition, sing lots of number-related songs, such as "Ten Little Indians" and "Monkeys Jumping on the Bed."

8. Look through books of animal pictures and ask children about the similarities and differences between animals they see. For example, snakes don't have legs or ears, but monkeys do.

9. Don't just count in one direction. Count forward, backward and skip count to expose children to the different ways numbers can be sorted and categorized.

Tips & Warnings

• Keep if fun. Frustrated children will give up on learning.

References

• National Center for Learning Disabilities; Preschool Math Grows Up: Tips for Teachers; Kristin Stanberry; 2009